In order to have a performatic Essbase cube, we must keep vigilance and follow up its growth and its data movements so we can distribute caches and adjust the database parameters accordingly. But this is a very difficult task to achieve, since Essbase statistics are not temporal and only tell you the cube statistics is in that specific time frame.

This session will present how ODI can be used to create a historical statistical DW containing Essbase cube’s information and how to identify trends and patterns, giving us the ability for programmatically tune our Essbase databases automatically.

EPM environments are generally supported by a Data Warehouse; however, we often see that those DWs are not optimized for the EPM tools. During the years, we have witnessed that modeling a DW thinking about the EPM tools may greatly increase the overall architecture performance.

The most common situation found in several projects is that the people who develop the data warehouse do not have a great knowledge about EPM tools and vice-versa. This may create a big gap between those two concepts which may severally impact performance.

This session will show a lot of techniques to model the right Data Warehouse for EPM tools. We will discuss how to improve performance using partitioned tables, create hierarchical queries with “Connect by Prior”, the correct way to use multi-period tables for block data load using Pivot/Unpivot and more. And if you want to go ever further, we will show you how to leverage all those techniques using ODI, which will create the perfect mix to perform any process between your DW and EPM environments.

These presentations you can expect a lot of technical content, some very good tips and some very good ideas to improve your EPM environment!

Also I’ll be graduating in this year leadership program and this year we’ll be all over the place with the K-Team, a special team created to make the newcomers fell more welcome and help them to get the most of the kscope.

Also Rodrigo will be at Tuesday Lunch and Learn for the EPM Data Integration track on Cibolo 2/3/4.

And of course we will be around having fun an gathering new ideas for the next year!!!

A standard Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) reporting application can hold more or less 1,200 users. This may be a reasonable number of users for the majority of the companies out there, but what happens when an IT leader like Dell decides to acquire another IT giant like EMC and all of their combined 140,000-plus users need to have access to an HR OBIEE instance? What does that setup looks like? What kind of architecture do we need to have to support those users in a fast and reliable way?
This session shows the complexity of Dell’s OBIEE environment, describing all processes and steps performed to create such environment, meeting the most varied needs from business demands and L2 support, always aiming to improve environment stability. This architecture relies on a range of different technologies to support that huge amount of end users such as LDAP & SSL, Kerberos, SSO, SSL, BigIP, Shared Folders using NAS, Weblogic running into a cluster within #4 application servers.
If the challenge was not hard enough already, all of this setup also needed to consider Dell’s legacy OBIEE upgrade from v11.1.1.6.9 to v11.1.1.7.160119, so we will explain what were the pain points, considerations and orchestration needed to do all of this in parallel.

Hi guys how are you? Today we are proud to announce that we are making available the ODI KMs for HFM 11.1.2.4.

—- EDITED on June/17 —-

We developed these KMs around 6 months ago, but we were waiting to release them together with an article that we wrote for Oracle.

Since OTN had some “Priority changes”, our article was postponed to later this year. As we had some people asking for these KMs we decide to release the KMs now and when the article is published we will let you guys know as well.

The article is live here! And if you guys are having errors with our KMs, please check our troubleshooting post here.

—- EDITED on June/17 —-

Prior to version 11.1.2.4, ODI could be easily used for HFM integration processes. ODI used its KMs with specific HFM drivers (HFMDriver.dll) provided by Oracle that were used to access and manipulate HFM applications. However, on HFM’s latest version, Oracle decided to remove its support for ODI, meaning that all HFM integrations would have to move from ODI to either manual iteration with HFM, usage of another integration tool (Like FDMEE) or create custom code using the new Java HFM API.

Since we didn’t want to re-write all our ODI environment and also none of the above options are robust enough, we decided to recreate the ODI KMs using Java HFM API. For these KMs to work we need to do two things: import them from ODI Java Net and do some setup in the ODI agent.

In the article we explain all options and how do we came up with this solution, but here we will not talk about it since we want you guys to read our article as well and we can’t use the content of the article here since we already signed an exclusivity agreement with Oracle.

The first part is easy and you just need to download the files from the link below

The second one is more difficult. We need to make the new HFM Jars available to the ODI Agent and in order to do so we have two options:

Install the agent in the HFM machine OR copy the necessary jar files to the agent drivers folder (oracledi\agent\drivers).

If your architecture allows to have both HFM and ODI agent in the same server, then you may use this approach, which is very simple. The only thing to do is to change odiparams file (oracledi\agent\bin\odiparams.bat file in a standalone agent) and add the location of those three HFM jar files. Open odiparams.bat file and search for “ODI_ADDITIONAL_CLASSPATH”. On that setting, just set the location of the HFM jar files, as below (this is just an example. Please adjust the path accordingly to your environment):

If you decide to go with the second option, we’ll provide a list of all the necessary jars (be prepared… it’s huge). In the article we explain how to identify all the necessary jar files in a systematic way but here this is not an option as explained before.

Search for all the Jars in the below list and copy all of them under oracledi\agent\drivers folder.

Restart the ODI agent and it should be ready to execute any HFM Java code inside of ODI.

I know that this is a lot of jars and will take some time to find all of them but at least you’ll be able to upgrade you HFM and still use the same interfaces you have today in ODI to manage HFM (just remember to use the new data store objects reversed from the new RKM).

The KM usage is very similar to the old ones and we had the instructions in all its options so we’ll not explain then here (just in the article). The only important difference is on how to setup the “Cluster (Data Server)” information on Data Server (Physical Architecture). For the new HFM API, we need to inform two new settings: Oracle Home and Oracle Instance Paths. Those paths are related to the server where your HFM application is installed. These settings will be used internally in HFM API to figure out all HFM information related to that specific HFM instance.

Due to these two new settings and in order to continue to accommodate all connection information within a single place (ODI Topology), “Cluster (Data Server)” was overloaded to receive three settings instead of just one, separating them by colon. So now “Cluster (Data Server)” receives “dataServerName:oracleHomePath:oracleInstancePath” instead of just dataServerName.

Having those considerations in mind, it is just a matter to create a new Data Server and set the overloaded “Cluster (Data Server)” information and the user/password that ODI will use to access the HFM application. After that, we just need to create a Physical Schema with the name of the HFM application, a new Logical Schema and associate that to a context.

And that is it, you guys are ready to upgrade your HFM environment and still use your old ODI interface to maintain HFM. If you guys have any doubts/suggestions about the KMs please few free to contact us.

If you guys are having errors with our KMs, please check our troubleshooting post here.

I just finished a very exciting project in Brazil and I would like to share how we put everything together for a 100% cloud solution that includes PBCS, BICS, DBCS and ODI. Yes ODI and still 100% cloud.

Now you would be thinking, how could be 100% cloud if ODI isn’t cloud yet? Well, it can be!

This client doesn’t have a big IT infrastructure, in fact, almost all client’ databases are supported and hosted by providers, but still, the client has the rights to have a good forecast and BI tool with a strong ETL process behind it right?

Thanks to the cloud solutions, we don’t need to worry about infrastructure anymore (or almost), the only problem is… ODI.

We still don’t have a KM for cloud services, or a cloud version of ODI, them basically we can’t use ODI to integrate could tools….

Or can we? Yes we can 🙂

The design is simple:

PBCS: Basically we’ll work in the same way we would if it was just it.

BICS: Same thing here, but instead of use the database that comes with BICS, we need to contract a DBCS as well and point the DW schema to it.

DBCS: here’s the trick. Oracle’s DBCS is not else then a Linux machine hosted in a server. That means, we can install other things in the server, other things like ODI and VPN’s.

ODI: we just need to install it in the same way we would do in an on premise environment, including the agent.

VPN’s: the final touch, we just need to create VPN’s between the DBCS and the client DB’s, this way ODI will have access to everything it needs.

Yes you read it right, we can install ODI in the DBCS, and that makes ODI a “cloud” solution.

The solution looks like this:

BICS: It’ll read directly from his DW schema in the DBCS.

PBCS: There’re no direct integration between the PBCS and DBCS (where the ODI Agent is installed), but I found it a lot better and easy to integrate them using EPM Automate.

EPM Automate: With EPM Automate we can do anything we want, extract data and metadata, load data and metadata, execute BR and more. For now the easiest way to go is create a script and call it from ODI, passing anything you need to it.

VPN’s: For each server we need to integrate we’ll need one VPN created. With the VPN between the DBCS and the hosts working, use ODI is extremely strait forward, we just need to create the topology as always, revert anything we need and work in the interfaces.

And that’s it. With this design you can have everything in the cloud and still have your ODI behind scenes! By the way, you can exactly the same thing with ODI on premise and as a bonus you can get rid of all VPN’s.

In another post I’ll give more detail about the integration between ODI and PBCS using EPM Automate, but I can say, it works extremely well and as far I know is a lot easier than FDMEE (at least for me).

In a fast-moving business environment, finance leaders are successfully leveraging technology advancements to transform their finance organizations and generate value for the business.
Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) applications are an integrated, modular suite that supports a broad range of strategic and financial performance management tools that help business to unlock their potential.

Dell’s global financial environment contains over 10,000 users around the world and relies on a range of EPM tools such as Hyperion Planning, Essbase, Smart View, DRM, and ODI to meet its needs.

This session shows the complexity of this environment, describing all relationships between those tools, the techniques used to maintain such a large environment in sync, and meeting the most varied needs from the different business and laws around the world to create a complete and powerful business decision engine that takes Dell to the next level.

Hi guys how are you? It has been a long time since last time I wrote something but it was for a good reason! We were working in our two Kscope sessions! Yes, this year we will have 2 sessions and I think they will be great!

Anyway, let us get to the point!

Today I want to talk about something that should be very simple to do it but in the end, it is a nightmare…. Zip a file in a remote server…

A little bit of context! I was working in a backup interface for one client and, because their cubes are very big, I was trying to improve the performance as much as I can.

Part of the backup was to copy the .ind and .pag files and the data extract files as well. For an app we are talking in 30 gb of .pag and 40 gb of data extract files.

Their ODI infrastructure is like this:

Basically I need to extract/copy data from Essbase server to the disaster recovery server (DR Server). Nothing special here. The problem is, because the size of the files I wanted to Zip the files first and then send it to the DR server.

If you use the ODI tools to Zip the file, what it does is bring all the files to the ODI Agent server, zip everything and the send it back. I really do not want all this traffic in the network and all the time lost in this process (also, the agent server is a LOT less powerful then the Essbase server).

Then I start to research how I could do that (and thank you my colleague and friend Luis Fernando Cairo that help me a lot doing a lot of tests on this)

First of all we have three main options here:

Create a .bat file and run it remotely: I did not like it because I do not want a lot of .bats all over the places

Use windows invoke command: I need a program in the server like 7 zip or so and I don’t have access to install freely and I do not want to install zip’s program all over the places too

Use Psexec to execute a program in the server: Same as the previous one.

Ok, I figure out that in the end I’ll need to create/install something in the server… and I rate it. Well, let’s at least optimize the problem right!

Then I was thinking, what I have in common in all Hyperion servers? The answer is JAVA.

Then I thought, I can use the JAR command to zip a file:

jar cfM file.zip *.pag *.ind

Where:

c: Creates a new archive file named jarfile (if f is specified) or to standard output (if f and jarfile are omitted). Add to it the files and directories specified by inputfiles.

f: Specifies the file jarfile to be created (c), updated (u), extracted (x), indexed (i), or viewed (t). The -f option and filename jarfile are a pair — if present, they must both appear. Omitting f and jarfile accepts a “jar file” from standard input (for x and t) or sends the “jar file” to standard output (for c and u).

M: Do not create a manifest file entry (for c and u), or delete a manifest file entry if one exists (for u).

Humm, things start to looks better. Now I had to decide if I would use the Invoke command or Psexec.

I started trying the Invoke command, but after sometime I figure out that I can’t execute the jar command using invoke.

Then my last alternative was Psexec.

The good thing about it is that is a zip file that you need just to unzip in the agent server, set it in the Environment Variables (PATH) and you are good to go.

It works amazingly.

You can run anything remotely with this and it’s a centralized solution and non-invasive as well (what I liked).

Today we will be talking about how we can export any object from ODI in a dynamic way. But first, why would we want to do that? One good example to do this is to figure out which ODI objects changed during a period range and export their xml to be stored in a code versioning repository. Another one could be to export all ODI scenarios with a certain marker, or from specific projects/folders in an automated way. Exporting Load Plans: Few people realize it, but there is no easy way in ODI to export several Load Plans at once (you may move the desired load plans to a folder and then export the entire folder with “Child components export” selected, but that would be considered cheating 🙂 ). Or maybe you just want to do it for the sake of doing something in a dynamic way (if you already read some of our posts, you already know that we like dynamic coding!).

First, let’s take a look on the OdiExportObject object from the Toolbox.

From Oracle Documentation:Use this command to export an object from the current repository. This command reproduces the behavior of the export feature available in the user interface.

Great, that’s what we want: export any object (even Load Plans, that it’s not listed in the Oracle documentation) from the current repository. You may read about all its parameters here:

Two important parameters here: First we have the Object ID, that indicates which object you are about to export. This ID can be found by double clicking the ODI object and checking its Version tab:

The other parameter is the Classname. This one you may check on Oracle documentation but, as I said before, there may be some class names missing in the documentation, like SnpLoadPlan. So, the easiest way to check the correct Classname for any ODI object is to export it using the user interface, like below:

Go to the folder and open the xml file in a text editor. The Classname will be the Object Class right in the beginning of the xml file:

Ok, but it does not seem very dynamic, since we need to pass the object ID/Classname in order to export the correct object. So here we will use two of our favorite techniques to make it dynamic: Command on Source/Target and ODI metadata repository SQL. This is how it works: we will create an ODI procedure that will contain a SQL that queries the ODI metadata repository in the “Command on Source” tab (returning all the objects that we want to export) and OdiExportObject command on the “Command on Target” tab to actually export the objects.

Let’s begin with the “Command on Source” tab. First create a connection to you ODI work repository and define a Logical Schema to it. In the Command, add the SQL that will meet your requirement (in this example, retrieve all Load Plans that were created/modified since last week):

Our query needs to return three columns: the OBJECT_ID, OBJECT_CLASS and FILE_NAME. This information will be passed to the “Command on Target” to identify which objects needs to be exported.

Now, we need to add the OdiExportObject to the “Command on Target” tab and this is pretty simple to do. Every ODI object found in the Toolbox can be added to an ODI procedure and be called as “ODI Tools” Technology. If you are not sure how to do it, a good tip here is to add the ODI object that you want to add in the ODI procedure in an ODI package, set its parameters as you would normally do and click at the “Command” tab, like bellow:

Now just copy the command text and add it to your procedure in the “Command on Target” tab, selecting “ODI Tools” as its Technology:

As you can see, we have added three # variables here that will receive the information from the “Command on Source” tab. When you run this procedure, if 10 load plans were created/modified since last week, those will be exported to the EXPORT_DIR folder.

In this example we queried SNP_LOAD_PLAN table in order to get all load plan information. Luckily, the ODI table names are very similar to its Classname, so they should not be hard to find. Here is a list of the most common objects that you will likely export from ODI: